Concern about the impact of advertising on farmers’ pesticide use decisions and practices has long been voiced by integrated pest management (IPM) advocates. As pesticides are being marketed as a fast-moving consumer good (FMCG), they are made freely available. To increase sales, pesticide companies embark on massive advertising campaigns where advertising messages tend to focus on creating emotional appeals, particularly fear and sense of power to get farmers to buy their products. In some countries, farmers are constantly exposed to ubiquitous and colorful billboards, signboards, magazine advertisements, stickers and television and radio plugs which remind them to use pesticides in order to get a good crop. Thus, advertising for pesticides tends to increase misuse. In addition, companies also use a wide variety of promotional tools to stimulate a stronger market response. Sales representatives, at community meetings and seminars, give away samples, t-shirts, caps, and other gifts. Farmers are being locked in this attitude to either cure or prevent pests and diseases, completely contradictory to IPM principles.

Modern-day advertising generally uses conditioning to create associations between products and consumer needs (Kincheloe and Horn 2006). Knowing that these kinds of connection are usually temporary, companies follow Pavlov’s ideas of repetition and continually advertise to keep these associations in farmers’ minds. The lack of repetition and reinforcements in media campaigns could result in discontinuance. The need for continuous repetition, motivation, and reinforcement to sustain a learned behavior such as stopping unnecessary insecticide spraying and IPM practices is supported by Bandura’s (1977) “Social Learning Theory,” which emphasizes the need to keep the learning going by various forms of reinforcements. The chemical industry, on the other hand, employs repetition in all its advertising campaigns and is thus able to establish higher credibility and brand familiarity.

Advertisements are repeated endlessly not only to attract new customers but also to reassure current customers. Sandman (2000) noted that repetition creates a direct relationship between the product and the fulfillment of customers’ needs. Most advertising is targeted at customers who have already decided to buy the product and is intended to reinforce their decision and strengthen their behavioral commitment.

In their analysis of the role of emotions and risky technologies, Buck and Davis (2010) noted that emotions are routinely exploited in the marketing of risk such that emotional appeals used in advertising and propaganda support the mindless acceptance of risk, including technological risk. As a result, emotion is a key element in the design of effective messages warning of risk. To be effective, a warning must grab attention, stimulate memory, stir emotion, provide clear instruction, and show outcomes. As it is, effective warnings are toned down because they could affect sales. According to Buck and Davis (2010), risky behaviors such as the use of alcohol and tobacco are supported by highly effective emotional advertisements, and the so-called “warning labels” in the United States on alcohol and tobacco products do not provide effective warning. Similarly, the promotion of pesticides has been supported by strong emotional messages that do not deny, but rather ignore risk.

Cigarette and alcohol print ads without effective warnings on consequences of overuse

Advertisers and marketers have used emotion effectively, sometimes to encourage dangerous behavior and sometimes to promote the mindless acceptance of risk. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1976) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) distinguished between rational “central route” and “peripheral route” cognitive processing. Emotion was seen to be important in the peripheral route to persuasion where the issue at hand has relatively low involvement or personal relevance to the individual, and there is therefore little incentive to devote scarce cognitive resources to evaluating the arguments.

Wallack and Montgomery (2000) noted that advertising may produce a full range of unintended effects. The most direct way that advertising may affect public health is through the promotion of health-compromising products such as pesticides, tobacco and alcohol. They added that in developing countries the resources for the risks associated with product use are systematically minimized or totally ignored. As in most advertisements, the symbols used for pesticides, alcohol, and tobacco tend to be positive and conveyed to project success and wealth. Healthy and successful models in the ads convey the basic theme that product use will contribute to the wealth and success of the consumer. For example, in a recent study of farmers’ interpretation of pesticide posters, farmers were attracted to the superman image used in the Nurelle poster which shows power against pest. Male respondents liked the “boxing” image in the poster since it reminded them of Manny Pacquiao. Other participants said that they liked the word “Champion” because for them it implied effectiveness of the insecticides against pests.

An insecticide advertisement stressing lightning strength in its killing power

The dysfunctional consequences of unregulated promotion of health-compromising products such as pesticides call for better control of marketing so as not to deceive, create farmers’ overestimations and increase loss aversions.

Insecticide misuse in tropical rice is beginning to accelerate the development of insecticide resistance. High levels of resistance have been detected in the Mekong Delta (Read: resistance to BPMC, resistance to fipronil, resistance to imidacloprid). There are numerous attempts to measure insect responses to insecticides using a range of bioassay methods. However, unless the methodology used in these detections are quite similar it is difficult to compare their differences. We initiated an insecticide resistance network, developed standardized methods to be used in respective countries to collect a range of LD50 determinations in several countries and trained research partners (Read: Toxicology Report).

The standardized methods, including hands-on procedures in insect collection, rearing, preparation, bioassays and data analyses using the toxicological statistics software POLO plus are now published. The book is entitled “Research Methods in Toxicology and Insecticide Resistance Monitoring of Rice Planthoppers” by K.L. Heong, K.H. Tan, C.P.F. Garcia. L.T. Fabellar and Z. Lu (2011) and free download is available from http://books.irri.org/9789712202605_content.pdf.

Additional information on insecticide use

British couple and five other tourists died in Thailand ‘because of bed bug pesticide poisoning’. The suspected insecticide was chlorpyrifos commonly used in rice fields.

The neighbouring regencies (kabupaten) of Klaten, Boyolali and Sukoharjo in Central Java are among the most productive rice-growing areas of Indonesia. With an average of 6.12 tons per hectare over a harvested area of more than 150,000 hectare, these regencies produce close to a million tons of rice per annum. For the past two years, from early 2010 onward, however, these regencies have been beset by a recurrent infestation of brown planthopper that has caused wide-spread hopperburn and has led to the extensive spread of both grassy stunt and ragged stunt virus.

This area is notable for its continuous intensive rice cultivation characterized by the phrase, “Pari, pari, pantun” which can be translated as “Rice, rice and then rice.” A combination of staggered irrigation and the individual use of water from boreholes has frustrated government attempts to organize simultaneous planting over a wide area. Farmers, many of whom either share-crop or rent their fields, are reluctant to allow fallow time between rice crops or replace rice with a lower value secondary crop. This is particularly the case for those farmers who pay large advance payments to rent their fields. Moreover heavy rains in 2010-11 have constrained the planting of maize or soybean.

All rice varieties have been affected by the brown planthopper. This includes the present most commonly planted rice variety, Ciherang, the previously popular, IR 64, and a range of newly introduced Inpari varieties as well as various varieties of hybrid rice that are subsidized and promoted by the government.

In 2010, an estimated area of over 17,900 hectare has been significantly affected by hopperburn and virus. In the 1st season of 2011 (January to March), approximately 7400 hectare were seriously affected: 4450 hectare by brown planthopper and another 2,950 by virus.

Farmer in Buluh Rejo village, Klaten, whose field has both hopperburn and virus

A considerable variety of pesticides, often in cocktail mixes, are relied upon for what farmers misleadingly describe as “medicine” (Indonesian: ‘obat’) for dealing with hopper infestation. The following table sets out the array of these locally used pesticides based on their active ingredients. They include organophospate compounds such as chlorpyrifos, which is expressly prohibited for rice by Inpres 3/1986, a range of pyrethroids such as cyfluthrin, etofenprox, cypermethrin or cyhalodrin, cholinesterase inhibitors such as BPMC, neonicotinoids like imidacloprid that has generally ceased to be effective against brown planthopper and a broad spectrum systemic pesticide such as fipronil. Included among these pesticides is the juvenile retardant, buprofezin which is often inappropriately mixed combined with other pesticides. Also in use is the fungal bio-agent, Beuveria bassiana. For many pesticides, there are several different brand names for products with similar content. Local marketing is particularly robust but not well-served by informed guidance to farmers.

Table 1 Active ingredients in insecticides used by farmers and subsidized by the government

No.Active Ingredient/sUsed by FarmersRecommended/Subsidized by the Government

1

Biforasin

x

2

BPMC

x

x

3

Buprofezin

x

x

4

Dimehypo

x

x

Bisultap 400 g/l = dimehypo 400 g/l

x

5

Etofenprox

x

6

Fipronil

x

x

7

Imidacloprid

x

x

8

Carbosulfan

x

9

Chlorpyrifos

x

x

10

Lambda cyhalotrin

x

11

MIPC

x

x

12

Proproxur

x

13

Profesin

x

14

Cyfluthrin

x

15

Cypermethrin

x

x

16

Thiocyclam hydrogen oxalate

x

17

Thiamethoxam

x

x

Some of the worst infestation has occurred at the intersection where the three regencies adjoin each other. Indonesia’s current decentralization policies and the resulting changes in bureaucracy have inhibited coordination across administrative boundaries and among different responsible agencies. However recent initiatives have been taken to include the three regencies of Klaten, Boyolali and Sukarjo in a wider coordinated control effort involving seven neighbouring regencies, all affected by brown planthopper.

Brown planthopper infestation has continued into the second planting season as it has in other areas of serious infestation in Java, particularly in the regencies of Lamongan and Bojonegoro and Jember and Banyuwangi in East Java.

Planthoppers in Chainat province, Thailand have dramatically increased by more than 100,000 times in the last 2 years (Read: Patchanee et al.). Hundreds of farmers have been experiencing BPH outbreaks and heavy crop losses and are deep in debt. Planthopper outbreaks are insecticide induced. Early use of resurgence causing insecticides, such as cypermethrin, abamectin and chlorpyrifos, create conditions that can enable invading planthoppers to grow exponentially (Read: Heong and Schoenly).

When ecosystem services are destroyed in the early crop stages, invading planthoppers can grow exponentially into outbreak proportions.

We conducted a farmer survey of 340 farmers and found that all farmers used either abamectin, cypermethrin or chlorpyrifos in the early crop stages. About 59% of their insecticide sprays were using these 3 insecticides. Research has shown that these insecticides have adverse effect on ecosystem functions and promote outbreaks (Read: Heong and Schoenly). The insecticides decrease predator abundance and species richness, guild and food web structure and food chain lengths and increase pest abundances. Predator-prey relationships are disorganized and modify ratios of predator-prey-neutrals.

Chainat farmer showing his rice crop that was wiped out by hopperburn.

All the farms had some degrees of hopperburn. We asked farmers when their first insecticide applications were and also to estimate their losses due to hoppers in kg/ha. We used > 100 kg loss as an indicator of heavy hopper attacks and found that 72% of the farms were heavily attacked. We cross tabulated the cases and found that 71% of the farms with early spray had heavy hopper attacks. Average yields of farmers that had sprayed in the first 40 days were 5722 kg/ha while those that had sprayed their fields later were 5948 kg/ha. The differences were not significant.

Insecticides decrease food chain lengths creating a period of high vulnerability to planthpper infestations.

The survey also showed that 43.5% of the farmers applied prophylactic insecticides. The reasons they provided for spraying were “when some insects are seen” (63.2%), “to prevent insect attacks” (43.5%), “to mix with herbicide sprays” (45.6%), “when advised by agricultural technicians” (39.7%) and “when recommended by the local pesticide retailer” (22.1%).

Rice farmers in Chainat applying insecticides on their rice crop

In deciding on which insecticide to use, farmers had mainly relied on the local retailers (called the “doctors”) who have been serving as pest control advisers. Pesticides continue to be sold as FMCGs which permit advertisements to promote emotional buying.

The Rice Department promotes “no early spray” to reducing prophylactic use of insecticides in the early crop stages.

The Rice Department, working with IRRI and the Thailand Agro Business Association (TABA), are preparing to launch a campaign to ban the use of resurgence causing insecticides in rice to begin in June. Meanwhile, the Rice Department launched Sustainable Planthopper Management Initiative on March 25, 2011. The Initiative promotes “no early spray” to encourage farmers to stop using insecticides in the first 40 days after sowing, a key element of the “Three Reductions” principle adopted in Vietnam.

The problem is once again threatening rice production in Thailand. The planthopper populations in some areas have increased more than 100,000 folds !!. Thousands of hectares in 14 provinces are now infested by the pest and virus diseases that it carries. Since planthoppers are insecticide induced and farmers are not aware of this, they had focused on spraying even more. Since pesticides in Thailand are sold as fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and farmers rely on local retailers for advice they remain stuck in a vicious cycle of using more insecticides and increasing their debts.

The BPH outbreaks have attracted media interest and TV 3 broadcast a short story on Lop Buri farmers who had lost their crops. This is available on YouTube. Farmers described to the TV reporter that they started spraying insecticides at 3 to 7 day intervals after hearing about BPH outbreaks in the neighboring province. Their crops turned brown and were completely destroyed in less than a week after the spraying.

The Thai cabinet in its last session approved the project on developing sustainable planthopper management submitted by the Rice Department. The 385 million baht (or US$ 12.8 million) the Department is seeking will be used to multiply 15,000 tons of BPH varieties for distribution, to establish giant light traps in 20 provinces, establish mobile units, 300 community BPH management centers and communication campaigns. This will continue to support the sustainable planthopper management initiative, launched on 25 March 2011 in Chainat.

Additional information links

On the toxicity of chlorpyrifos, a commonly used insecticide in rice fields caused the death of a tourist in Chiang Mai because it was used to treat bed bugs in a hotel.

From July 2009, Central Thailand was heavily infested by brown planthoppers (BPH) and 2 years later the problem is still continuing with hopperburn areas reported in Lop Buri, Pathumthani, Ayuthaya, Angthong, Supanburi, Phitsanulok, Phichit, Kampaengphet and Chainat. Crops were heavily infected with two viruses, the grassy stunt and ragged stunt, and many areas are still heavily infested by them. In January 2010 the government had to revise production forecasts reducing it by 1.2 million tons or 4% (normal annual rice production around 30 million tons). In addition the government released about US$20 million supported by provincial and local governments for insecticide distribution and 1,240 million Thai baht (US$ 41 million) to compensate farmers’ losses. Many farmers had borrowed money to finance their input costs and were in debt because of consecutive crop failures due to BPH and virus diseases. Rice production in Central Thailand continues to be vulnerable to BPH attacks. Last year, Chien et al contributed a post suggesting that in Vietnam farmers who spray their crops in the early crop stages (first 40 days after sowing) were 10 times more vulnerable to hopper attacks. In our attempts to better understand some underlining factors that promote BPH populations, we conducted a similar research and interviewed 125 farmers with various degrees of BPH attacks.

All the respondents sprayed their crops, varying from 2 to 20 sprays, with an average of 6.7 sprays per season. About 92% of the farmers applied their first insecticide sprays in the first 40 days after sowing and most common compounds were abamectin, cypermethrin and chlorpyrifos. We grouped farmers into 4 categories and found that the farms with 10 and more sprays yielded lowest. The chart below shows the negative relationship between yield and number of sprays (click here too) farmers used.

Relationship between yield per ha and number of insecticide sprays used

All the farms had some degrees of hopperburn. We asked farmers when was their first insecticide application and also to estimate their losses due to hoppers in kg/ha. We used > 100 kg loss as an indicator of heavy hopper attacks and found that 72% of the farms were heavily attacked. We cross tabulated the cases and found that 71% of the farms with early spray had heavy hopper attacks. Average yields of farmers that had sprayed in the first 40 days were 5722 kg/ha while those that had sprayed their fields later were 5948 kg/ha. The differences were not significant.